In Round 16 of Serie A, Milan were looking to take advantage of Inter’s 2-1 loss against Sampdoria earlier in the day as the current league leaders took on Juventus at the Stadio San Siro. After Davide Calabria’s brilliant strike in the 41st minute, which leveled the score, it looked like Milan were destined to extend their unbeaten Serie A run to 16 games. However, for the first time this season, the Rossoneri did not spark a comeback as two second-half goals from Juventus gave Stefano Pioli’s side their first loss of the campaign.
Despite the defeat, Milan remain top of the Serie A standings following a slip-up from their fierce cross-city rivals Inter, while Juventus have climbed into fourth place, currently sitting seven points behind the Rossoneri with a game in hand.
This tactical analysis will break down the key playing patterns of both teams.
Starting Lineups and Formations
On paper, it looked like both managers opted for a similar tactical set-up; however, the opening minutes of the match provided us with a much clearer view in terms of the tactical mindset behind both teams’ formations.
At first glance, Pioli went for his traditional 4-2-3-1 set-up, which was reflected on the pitch to a large extent when Milan had the ball. The two center-backs in Simon Kjaer and Alessio Romagnoli formed a partnership at the heart of the defense, with a right-back Diogo Dalot mainly staying in Milan’s half during the first phase of build-up. In contrast, Theo Hernandez, Milan’s attacking-minded left-back, often positioned himself much higher up the pitch, combining with young Norwegian winger Jens Petter Hauge. The other winger, Samuel Castillejo, operated on the opposite flank while Hakan Calhanoglu was Milan’s only real playmaker who was allowed the freedom to roam around by drifting wide to support wingers and full-backs in the final third of the pitch.
On the other side, Juventus’ theoretical 4-4-2 formation nowhere near resembled the actual tactical set-up chosen by Andrea Pirlo. A theoretical back-line of four was often transformed into a back three, including Danilo (right), Leonardo Bonucci (center) and Matthijs De Ligt (left). The two center-midfielders in Rodrigo Bentancur and Adrien Rabiot formed a solid double pivot in the middle of the park, whereas Aaron Ramsey acted more as an attacking creative midfielder who often positioned in between the lines and made forward runs into the box.
Originally a left-back, Gianluca Frabotta played much higher up the pitch, occupying predominantly the position of the left wing-back. On the opposite flank, Federico Chiesa had complete freedom to bomb up and down the right-wing as Danilo stayed intact with the defensive line. Additionally, Paulo Dybala operated as a second striker and at times, as a center-forward, whereas Cristiano Ronaldo often drifted wide to the left, which created an overload and thus provided Chiesa with a lot of space on the right flank.
Juventus’ Offensive Play: Overloading Left-Wing, Isolating Chiesa and Attacking with Directness and Pace
The Old Lady are a possession-based team that often tries to build their play from the back utilizing short passing combinations. Pirlo’s men are the joint-first in the Serie A together with Sassuolo for ball-possession (59.9%), but at the same time, Juve can adjust their style and play more direct by adding verticality and pace to their game.
The Bianconeri complete the second-highest number of progressive passes per 90 minutes in the league (43.6), only behind Atalanta, and the most passes into the final third among all 20 teams (40.5). Additionally, Juve’s possession-based but also a more direct and vertical approach is perfectly showed by the total distance the passes have traveled towards the opponent’s goal in yards. Pirlo’s men are the league leaders for this metric, with their completed passes traveling on average 3236.3 yards per game. In contrast, Sassuolo, who possess the identical amount of ball possession per game, are only fourth in the league since their passes cover 2786.1 yards per 90 minutes.
Although the absence of Alvaro Morata meant that Juve were forced to play more passes to feet, some of their positional play was direct and involved vertical ball progression and movement with left side preference. In the graphical images displayed below, we can see these tendencies as Juventus preserve the ball on the left side of the pitch, combining in threes and fours, thus inviting Milan deeper into their half, which creates space in behind to exploit.
As we can see in the example below, the first phase involved backwards passes as Juve wanted to create space in behind, with Ronaldo pinning Milan’s right-back. A short passing combination backwards set a trap for Milan as some of their players were dragged out, thus allowing Juve to play a quick forward pass to Frabotta who had acres of space in front of him to progress the ball further.
It followed with a bursting run from Juve’s left wing-back who covered nearly half a pitch before releasing a pass to Chiesa. The Bianconeri’s right-winger often found himself isolated on the right flank due to Juventus’ tactics to initiate the build-up down the left side.
A similar scenario can be spotted again in the image below, with four Juventus’ players attacking down the left flank against Milan’s four. As we can see, Ronaldo dropped deep into his own half and drifted wide, thus forcing the Rossoneri’s backline to push up. A quick triangular play perfectly set-up a chance to play a direct ball in behind Milan’s defense for one of the Juventus’ players to run onto.
Both Ronaldo and Dybala held the ball up perfectly in this instance, setting-away Ramsey, who was already running onto the through ball.
Additionally, on occasions when Milan retrieved deeper to their own half, Juve found it a little harder to play more direct due to Morata’s absence. As a result, Pirlo’s tactical plan was to heavily overload the left side of the pitch, forcing Milan players to shift ball side and then quickly switch the play with either one or two passes. For this plan to work, Chiesa was an integral part of Juve’s attacking in the game.
In this example, De Ligt plays the ball to Danilo, who then finds Chiesa isolated one-on-one with the opposing left-back.
As mentioned above, Chiesa found himself isolated on many occasions which proved to be a great success, as the 23-year-old Italian scored twice and was a constant threat in one-on-one situations.
Another example of such tactical maneuver is provided below. Juventus are heavily overloading the left side of the pitch intending to switch the play with a cross field ball to Chiesa.
The Italian right-winger found himself on the end of the pass, with only Hernandez to beat as Milan were too slow to shift across.
Juventus’ crucial second goal of the game was a result of the similar concept outlined above. In the image below, we can see Chiesa sprinting down the right-wing, with little to no difficulty as the Italian found himself in a great shooting position moments later.
The following illustration perfectly sums up the tactical intentions of Pirlo. As we can see in the touch map on the lower left, the Bianconeri did spend the majority of the time building up down the left flank. The right side of the pitch was less active (38% activity) mainly because Chiesa was the only player operating in the final zones. Nevertheless, it proves the assumption that Juve were looking to build their play down the left before switching to the right to make use of Chiesa’s strengths playing one-on-one.
Chiesa’s brilliance in the final third proved to be a major difference between the two sides yesterday. The Italian right-winger scored 2 goals, had 35 touches, 5 of which were in the opposing box, completed 90% of his passes, made 2 successful dribbles and had 3 shots on target.
Milan’s Attacking Strategy: Swift Counterattacks but Poor End Product
The Rossoneri’s performances have been talked about many times this season, with Milan described as one of the most effective teams for grinding out the results in the top five European leagues. Prior to yesterday’s clash with Juve, Milan were the 2ndhighest-scoring team in the league with 34 goals, having on average 15.4 shots per game (3rd best result). However, the 18-time Scudetto winners are far from the most imposing teams in the league in terms of positional play, as they rank only 9th for ball possession (avg. 51.1%) and touches in the midfield third (avg. 292.7).
Pioli’s men are one of the most direct teams in terms of their style of play in the Serie A. Despite having only the 9th largest amount of ball possession in the league, the Rossoneri on average have 28.7 touches in the attacking penalty box (4th best in the Serie A). Moreover, Milan play the highest number of long balls among the top six teams (avg. 92.1), and they have scored the second most set-piece goals in the league (7).
Milan’s direct and shots oriented approach was prominent in yesterday’s game as well. Although the Serie A leaders enjoyed only 42% of possession, the Rossoneri had 20 attempts at goal (6 more than Juve) of which 8 hit the target. Milan’s direct approach mainly revolved around the swift offensive transitions after winning the ball back in defense.
We can see an example of this scenario in the illustrations below. At first, when not pressing, Milan stayed very compact, with little space in between all three team units (defensive, midfield and attack). Consequently, it created difficulties for the opponent to play through; thus, Milan attacking players always set themselves on a front foot in case the ball was won back successfully.
A very similar situation can be spotted in the illustration below. This time, the Rossoneri defended on the edge of their penalty area; however, a successful defensive action was followed by a quick offensive transition, with four Milan players finding themselves in front of the Juventus’ quartet.
Another almost identical situation can be analyzed below, which resulted in Milan’s equalizing goal. After sniffing out the danger, the Rossoneri quickly transitioned themselves and set-away a center-forward Rafael Leao who received the ball in a favorable position wide on the left-wing. Three Milan midfielders made bursting runs forwards, with Juventus’ defense totally out of shape. As a result, Calabria’s run was spotted by Leao who played a delightful ball to the Italian making it 1-1.
However, when Milan did enjoy a longer spell of possession, they often had problems finding the right passing angles in order to create more favorable shooting opportunities. In the image below, we can see that Juventus chose to retrieve to a low defensive block on many occasions, which left Milan with only two options: send crosses into the box or shoot from distance.
As we can see from the shots map, the majority of Milan’s shots were of little danger to Juventus’ goal. Out of 20 attempts at goal, 12 of those were from outside the box with a very low probability of scoring.
Shot Map of Both Teams
xG (expected goals): Milan 0.91 – 2.18 Juventus
Result: Milan – Juventus 1-3
Conclusion
To sum it up, to the naked eye it looked like a relatively equal game of football, with both teams creating lots of shooting opportunities and possessing threat through intricate positional play or counterattacks. However, Juventus showed why they are still in this title race, coolly converting most of the best chances they created in this game. Out of Juventus’ 14 attempts at goal, 11 of them were from inside the penalty box, which shows that the Bianconeri were much more thoughtful with their attempts than Milan.